The way a game pulls us in and can contribute towards compulsive play:

Games are engaging, more so than the scenes and sounds of TV by using your hands and putting you in control of a character. They utilise the senses (with the controlling acting like a stimming toy) & the mind is thinking, planning and responding during play. Furthermore, gaming offers a plethora of options and genres to immerse yourself in. In the UK of 2024, the gaming Industry was worth £7.6bn, and lots of research is put in to making games enjoyable experiences worthy of sinking our free time into.

There are some more sinister ways of ensuring you spend time on a game, and one of those uses Operate Pavlovian Conditioning through Intermittent Reinforcement – making rewards unpredictable and slightly random. You may get a rare drop once, or know it’s possible, so keep playing and grinding to get it again.

This technique is most sinister with loot boxes. Players buy these loot boxes with real world money in the hope of getting rare drops, skins, or unlocks and can find themselves with a gambling addiction investing money to get that rare unlock. A principle called the Sunk Cost Effect can entrench people into spending more on loot boxes if they’ve already spent money, because stopping spending makes the money already spent meaningless

“I’ve already spent £50 I might as well spend another £10”.

The players who end up spending the most on loot boxes are also often more vulnerable, rather than wealthy people spending money on a game they have less time to play – which can lead to a sinister exploitation termed ‘whale hunting’ where games aim to find players (whales) who are unable to control the amount of money they spend on microtransactions.

Playing online was associated with increasing the risk of gaming addiction. Online playing can include gaming whilst having chat opened or using social media to talk during gaming times (e.g. Discord). Playing online is especially true for games in a world that continues to move when you are not playing – think massive multiplayer online RPGs where you might even be in a clan and not playing sets you back against players who are.

What I’m saying, is games that create a sense of community, or there are social pressures to play, increase risk of compulsive play. This is magnified if a player has a romantic relationship or their friendship base revolve around gaming. Effectively, games that give you a sense of social connection can lead to compulsive play if that connection isn’t being met outside of gaming.

Competitive games were also more likely to risk addiction with genres such as MOBAs, real time strategies, shooters, and sports games. If a game gives you a sense of reward, mastery, achievement over others, or excellence; there can be a drive to keep playing to retain that achievement and not lose it – especially if you’re not meeting that need of mastery outside of gaming.

There was some mention that more violent genres of games were also associated with greater risk, though gaming causing violence is a myth after being extensively studied.

Finally many games allow you to create an avatar and customise their playstyle, appearance, and personality. This can lead to us meeting our needs through that avatar through a process called Identification. We can project onto that avatar and work their needs rather than our own, which was associated with compulsive gaming – when we form an attachment with our character in a game.